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Tuesday, November 30, 2010

May Britt has been talking about baking covers - beautiful embroidered covers, common in Scandinavian countries. She asked us to post what we like to bake for a chance to win a give away she and Hanne are hosting.

I like to bake cookies and bars best, but I bake bread every few days. The bread that I make rises for the last rise in a tea towel. I don't have pretty embroidered baking covers but I do use tea towels that I have collected from some trips. The one in the picture is from our last trip to Italy.

Today we are having near blizzard conditions - you can't hear the howling wind in the picture, or see the blowing snow - but it is getting tiring! At least the sun finally came out.

Monday, November 29, 2010

Finally my sewing machine came home today! The problem is fixed for now - I was told that they don't know what happened and it will probably happen again. I am just thrilled to have it back after over a week. Sewing on my old machine reminded me why I replaced it.

With a coordinating design for the border. I used Invasifil for the top and Aurifil 50 for the bobbin, with a #70 Microtex needle.

Over at Jo's Country Junction , she kindly mentions my quilt along, mentioning that she wished she was doing an online quilt along instead of her LQS' BOM. She said that she always spends more money when she goes in to pick up her BOM. I had never thought of this - but when I went to pick up my sewing machine today, I did come home with some extra thread!! Glad I don't belong to my LQS' BOM. ☺

I had a surprise the other day when I went to check on my plants in the basement under grow lights - a succulent was blooming! I have had this plant for a number of years and this is the first time it has bloomed. The flower was a least 8" across - but it smelled like something had died!!

Back to my sewing machine!!Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!! ♥

Friday, November 26, 2010

I am thrilled to report that Terry won my mini quilt give away and she has already sent me her address, so I will be mailing it tomorrow. Congratulations Terry!! And a huge thank-you to everyone who entered!!Something else going in the mail tomorrow is my Secret Santa present!

I'll tell more about crazy quilting later, when my partner receives the present.

There is a great fat quarter giveaway going on over at Merry Made Quilts - Rebecca is celebrating her 100th post!

With the 4¼" print B square and the four 2+3/8" background squares make the four fast flying geese (FFG - described in older QA blocks or here).

They should be trimmed to 2" x 3½".

With the two 2+3/8" print B squares and two 2+3/8" background squares make the four half square triangles (HST - described in older QA blocks). Trim the four HST's to 2".

Make the center using four triangles (cut from the 3+7/8" squares - two print A and two background). I trimmed the corners before sewing the triangles together.I pressed the center in the windmill technique.

Sew two print A triangles (made from the 4 - 2+3/8" squares) to the 4 FFG, paying attention to how they are sewn - see above picture. Press the seams to the triangles

Sew two background triangles (made from the four 2+3/8" squares cut in half on the diagonal) to the four HST. See above picture. Press the seams to the triangles.

For the second one I chose to replace one of the 3+7/8" background squares (cut in half on the diagonal) with a print C square.

I often search the Quilt Index for ideas for this Quilt Along and I found a nice quilt made with this block. This one replaces the FFG with HST's, and the corners triangles are alternating colours.All kinds of possibilities to change the look of the block - have fun! This block is slightly different from than the others, but we had a simple block last week.

Monday, November 22, 2010

The quilt along is coming along wonderfully! I am so thrilled by the response!!♥♥

I have posted 7 blocks, and there are 13 more to go (if you are making a queen size quilt like mine). By my calculations we will be finished piecing in the middle of February, unless we take some time off for Christmas? I have some catching up to do on the alternating blocks! (Connie has all her 41 alternating block done!! Way to go!!)

Because I am stumped by posting printable patterns, it is kind of limiting. I wanted to let you know that all the blocks will be non-directional (I want a quilt that is square and can go in any direction on my bed - less sun damage on one side). All this being said - applique would be a great addition to the quilt! If you have EQ6/7 there is a great free download of applique blocks (they are Rose of Sharon, a couple hundred I think).

If you chose to add some applique, make sure the blocks are 9". I might decide to do only one of a few blocks and add some machine applique ones.

Colleen was kind enough to send me a picture of how her quilt is coming along -

Beautiful!

I have seen others around and it always thrills me!!♥Here are a couple that come to mind -Joan has been doing a wonderful job on her blocks.Karen has some great ideas for her blocks.Needled Mom is doing a couple of quilt alongs, and has chosen to use more modern fabric for mine - nice to see the difference.

If any one wants to send me pictures I will add them here.There are more pictures on Flickr.

I also have to mention that it is my wonderful husband's birthday today! ♥

This is as close to a baby picture that we of him - he is the youngest of 7.

I thought I would add this picture of our youngest at around the same age - can you tell they are related?! Even the same haircuts - thanks to their Mom's!

Sunday, November 21, 2010

I used leftover Figgy Pudding fabric from the Arrowhead quilt. I thought I would have enough fabric to make the log cabin blocks bigger, but I was wrong! I wanted it to be a specific size to fit on a round table and I only had a big enough piece of white fabric leftover. So I added a border around the whole piece - it is like it is laying on snow! ☺

This kind of log cabin block is very easy. The key is the center piece.

For this one I started with a 2" strip of fabric. Once the first 60° angle is cut,

you cut 2" pieces (or what ever size the strip was cut) parallel to the 60° cut.

The log cabin is pieced around the center like a normal log cabin block. I used 1¼" strips, 2 strips on each side of the center. The border is cut 3½" and the table topper is 29" point to point.

For this tree skirt I made a while ago, I used a 2¼" piece for the center and 1½" strips for the logs, with 4 strips on each side of the center. It is 46" point to point.

Back to the star design - you will need 12 log cabin blocks to make a star, 6 pieced like this-

and 6 like this -These ones are added in after the other blocks are sewn into the star shape, using a Y seam.

Even mitering the border is the same as normal but using the 60° line on the ruler instead of the 45°.

It is designed using the EQ6/EQ7.

It is using the one block quilt - baby block.Placing the log cabin blocks in, it is easy to rotate the blocks for different layouts.

I also added all the buttons to the crazy quilt piece, it is now ready to be sewn into the finished piece.My sewing machine had to go in for repairs!!! It was clunking! I brought out my old one to finish piecing, it is like using a toy sewing machine. At least I have a spare machine - I was originally going to sell it - glad I didn't.

We had more snow today, beautiful big flakes -

when the sun came out everything was sparkly.I live just out side of Winnipeg, and I recently found out that it is the coldest major city (with a population over 600,000) in the world !!!

Carrying on the Tradition

The old quilts on the right side of my blog header photo are ones made by a couple of great-grandmothers, a grandmother and an aunt, plus some of their photos and some of their quilting supplies. The quilt in the background and the ones on the left are mine.